Digital, The Reality Show I must once again start by offering my apologies for the tardiness of my editorial. But being a full time photographer for some reason seems to take up a great deal of my time! Plus, this year seems to be something of an anomaly what with the amount of work that’s been coming my way. But there are certainly no complaints from me on that point! Combine that with trying to make my next FotoFantasyCamp another success, and it tends to really catch up with you, and quickly! There just isn’t enough time in a day anymore. And with that said, this particular article has an ironic twist since it’s spun directly from a few of those jobs of late, wherein the client wanted everything shot in the digital format. Now I can hear those few of you out there already screaming and clapping with glee that digital must be really taking over now. And yes, it is definitely making headway. Certainly with some clients out there who tend to believe everything they read or hear in those myriad ads promoting the medium. But, I want it known now that there is a bit of a dark-side to all things digital. Not so much sinister in its workings per se, but certainly a side that presents quite a lot of variables that should be seriously considered before accepting that next total digijob. Now the equipment seems to be constantly upgraded making it better and better, so that’s certainly a positive thing. But again, even with a very nice camera (I use the Fuji S2 Pro), you still have issues to contend with when dealing with digital gear vs. film cameras. One of which is you had better buy stock in Duracell. With the camera running the motor for auto-focusing the lenses to writing constantly to a memory card, and then add to it trying to edit images using the little screen on the camera, well, those little batteries are goners before you know it. And should you happen to get a camera let’s say, more marginal in quality, there’s suddenly color issues that can crop up that might take you hours to work your way through! And believe me, I’ve heard some real horror stories about calibrating color over and over while losing precious hours of shooting time. And with their battle being sometimes ongoing what a nightmare that could be. One of my most recent jobs took me to London, England. It was to shoot a potential album cover and poster. They wanted me to shoot everything digital, which I of course complied. But I also backed it up by shooting medium format film as well. And though I probably got the shots they wanted in digital, amazingly enough, they came to me later and asked if I had by chance shot some film as well! HELLO? Did someone mention they wanted that option? No. But, thank God I took it upon myself to bring along the film camera and shoot it alongside the digital. It made for one very happy client and one very relieved photographer. (Sometimes, second-guessing clients does have its merits). But let’s talk about the digital shoot for a moment. As described, the digital camera did as it was told. Shooting numerous images as I wanted them, oodles of them in fact. But where one would normally go to the lab and drop off the film, wait a couple hours and then go pick it up, well, I spent my evenings glued to my iBook while downloading all those files. Followed closely with editing them, which included checking for focus, color, lighting, and for “the” shot. I’ll put it this way I didn’t see any nightlife while in London. Where everyone is howling how great not having any film costs, etc., you’re now looking at your time doubling, even tripling compared to working in film. (Oh sure, hand it off to the assistant to set the standard for your jobs!) Now if you’re a total tech weenie and live for the computer I guess that’s cool. And though I love my machines I don’t ever want to become a slave to them! But that’s sort of what I’m seeing happen from the digital side. And after all the shooting was done and the images edited now the client wanted to know if I might do a little of the retouch, or, would I rather simply hand them off to them. And since I pride myself in my vision as a photographer (as well as my skills in retouching), I cannot in good faith simply shoot something and hand it off without first making sure it was at the level I’ve always been accustomed. (Or that my clients have been accustomed) And that means looking at, and maybe even doing some retouching on some of the images to achieve that. What does it mean? More time spent working on the digital. It all seems to boil down to time. Are you willing to hold yourself accountable and present only the finest images you can, which takes more and more of your time, or, are you going to now “short-cut” your photographic reputation by simply handing the stuff off and walking away? And yes, there are many doing that very thing. But I simply cannot do the latter. And because of that I’m caught in a sort of digital Catch-22 of sorts. Damned if I do and damned if I don’t. But I must and will be governed by the standards and ethics I’ve always lived by throughout my career. But by holding myself to that standard, I’m leaving myself open to long nights sitting in a hotel room to save a few dollars for clients. Is it worth it? Well, in their minds it certainly seems that way. For me, I will still try to shoot film first. Film was, and still is the element that has brought me to where I am in my life as a photographer. And I truly believe it will remain the defining part of my life going forward. And as I’ve said in past editorials digital is simply another tool that you can use among all the others. But I certainly don’t think it’s the ONLY one as some folks have come to accept. To never know something is sometimes as great a crime as exploiting or over-using it without restraint. For all you digital folks out there that have never known anything but digital photography, you owe it to yourself to try film. Yes, it’s a few more dollars in processing, but hey, take a couple dollars out of that battery stash and run a roll or two of film with it. You’ll really be glad you did! DJM Previous / Expose U Index / Next--Coming soon! Read more about David at www.davidmecey.com Read more about David's FotoFantasy Camp

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